


The Plan

by Helpfulfairy92



Series: Small Ideas [3]
Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 22:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20460911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helpfulfairy92/pseuds/Helpfulfairy92





	The Plan

Marriage has always been a part of her Plan.   
She’s blond, not stupid. And ambitious. She isn’t going to let anything stop her from getting what she wants. 

(She has a vision board and post its and planners for as far in advance as she could buy them to prepare.)

Some goals are reasonable. Some, not so.   
(Marrying Prince Harry, for instance, not something that was ever going to happen. But that didn’t stop her from dedicating a bullet point plan involving her moving to England and stalking him for a while.)

She adjusts The Plan every year, to keep up with the changes in her life. Blocks out time to readjust her trajectory and ensure that she is still on track. 

So yes, marriage has always been a part of The Plan; has been something she had wanted since she has known what marriage was, what it meant to tie yourself to another person for the rest of your lives, to be a half of a whole.   
She wants to fall in the forever kind of love that hitches breath and flushes cheeks and sits in your mind.   
So, sue her.   
She wants the kind of love that bears children and happiness and grey hair on a porch.   
The kind of love that burned hot and bright at first, then warmed and simmered and is made up of laughter and kisses and smiles and dancing in the kitchen to the sound of the rain on the roof. 

And then she died. 

And because of that, her whole plan is shot to shit, because being dead has a funny way of doing that to a girl.   
Because now, forever has entirely different connotations. Big, scary ones she hasn’t managed to wrap her head around yet, doesn’t want to try if she’s being honest. 

Her warm, soft human self is gone, has been replaced with something else.   
Something sinister and greedy and hungry.   
The landscape of her life that was once washed in shades of pastel and sunshine is now drenched in blood and shades of grey that haunt her dreams. 

Instead, she tries to push the grey into the furthest corners of her mind, tries to keep her life safe, normal, human.   
Sticks to The Plan as much as she can, and besides, just how is she supposed to block out time to fix it when the world is falling apart around her? 

She ignores her new instincts to bite and tear and bleed and end everything. 

She tries to keep her life the same. 

She goes to school and dances and kisses her sweetheart.   
(Ignores the scent of his blood, the song of his heartbeat.)  
This sweetheart who is kind and sweet and perfect for human Caroline. Shallow kiddie-pool Caroline.   
But, she’s dead now, and she’s no longer a shallow kiddie pool, and her five, ten, fifteen year plan is no longer viable. 

Turns out, that much change is not a great foundation for a relationship. 

She gives up on the soft human love. Sets her sights on an epic love story, one that they will want to write books about, and sonnets and songs. 

Her wolf. (His Hybrid.)  
He’s sweet, and passionate and made up of raw edges and angry snarls. 

He gets the possessive nature of her, understands when she pushes into him, wants to climb into his bones, because he wants that too.   
He is all sharp edges, all temper and words and daring declarations of his affection, and hands that curl into fists, a deep furrow in his brow.   
And this feels more like her epic love.   
Because he won’t break, doesn’t falter in the face of her monster, because he has a monster buried in his skin too, one that breaks out at the full moon, just as scary as hers, just as possessive and hungry and angry. 

But it doesn’t last. And she nearly isn’t surprised. 

.......

The first time he turns up, she’s dying and freshly eighteen.

He is aghast when she asks if he intends to kill her, looks like he means his upset too.   
He spins her a fantastic tale of the world, even makes her believe that he believes the words coming out of his mouth.   
But eternity is still just a word, one that means nothing to her, one she has given no thought to, will give no thought to, not yet.   
He has lived some of his eternity. Has relished in the freedom it brings him.   
She can’t wrap her mind around how long he has been alive, because it makes no sense to her. 

For her, he spins it into something manageable, and for the first time, it doesn’t sit in her bones, terrifying her.   
For the very first time, she begins to understand the possibility it brings. 

She throws out her ten-year plan the morning after he saves her from himself. 

(Digs out her planner that night and apologies to it in her mind, tucks it into the back of a drawer, forgotten.)

She doesn’t tell him any of this, of course.   
Because she hates him.   
Hates the way he smirks at her, a curl of his lips when he finds out she breaks things off with Tyler.   
Hates the knowing glint to his eyes whenever he sees her.   
Hates the way he says her name, drawing it out until she has to supresses a shiver.   
Hates the way he uses his eyes to track her, their heat all too familiar across her skin.   
Hates the way he dances with her, too close and too perfect and too often.   
Hates the way his fingers brush across her skin, leaving gooseflesh in their wake.   
Hates him because he isn’t allowed to have these feelings, isn’t allowed to inspire anything but hatred in her.   
(She can’t hate him. Not really.)

.......

She had thought true love, the real kind, was the stuff of fairy tales, and he is a nightmare.   
He’s the nightmare that even monsters hide from.   
(Even though he features in several of her dreams, he’s never been her nightmare.)

So, she ignores him, and the feelings he inspires in her. Refuses to admit the way they grow.   
Tries to stop it from growing into something like regard at the pageant.   
She fails.   
Tries to stop the fond smile that sits on her lips as they sip cocktails in New York.   
She fails.   
Tries to stop their friendship as he plies her with more food in Marrakesh.   
She fails.   
Tries to stop the laughter that bubbles up when they walk in late winter sunshine in Milan.   
She fails. 

Doesn’t try to stop the way they lean into each other when they talk, finds her hands brushing his when they walk down a warm Tuscan street, washed in night-time shades of blue.   
Gives up when it turns into something else, something more.   
She finds doesn’t mind at all. 

.......

She had thought that love was the big moments that swept her away, the large show stopping moments that only happen in fairy tales, or movies. Those moments that leave butterflies in your veins, a nervous, pleased smile on your face.   
She realises it isn’t all about those moments.   
(He is still very good at those moments.)

It’s the small moments she loves the most. All they ways he says, ‘I love you” without saying a word. 

Because anyone can say words. 

The way he shifts the blankets higher over her unfeeling vampire shoulders, a glass poured before his own, a chair pulled out next to his, the secret smile he sends her across a room, the heat in his eyes, a gentle squeeze of fingers under the dinner table, it’s the fire in his eyes when they fight, the way his lips curl when she yells back at him, the way he sweeps her hair back from her eyes, the way his eyes seek hers, his sleepy smile in the morning, the way he presses kisses to her forehead when he thinks she’s sleeping. It’s also in the way he rips out hearts, presents them to her like a macabre kind of gift, the way his eyes heat when she bites into flesh. The unsteady brush of his hand against hers when it’s slick with blood. The way he is absolute in his sureness of her. 

A hundred million things like this, and more, so much more. 

It’s the way he looks at her, when the ever-present agony in his eyes recedes, fills with something else, something he only ever shows her.   
It looks like loneliness and hope and an affection so bright it burns.   
Whenever he looks at her like that, his siblings make a hasty exit, muttering about how sickeningly in love they are, but the words hold no heat, only a supressed happiness and she can’t help but smile at him, an almost shy grin that has him laughing in response.

An entire conversation without words about how much he loves her. 

And isn’t that better than any plan she could have written.   
.......


End file.
